Omar Hammami, born in Alabama to a Southern Baptist mother and a Sunni Muslim immigrant from Syria, was reported killed Thursday in Somalia, where he had gone to wage jihad with the group that apparently put him to death. Multiple reports said Hammami, who was known as Al-Ameriki and “the rapping jihadi,” was killed along with a British citizen of Pakistani descent known as Osama al-Britani, after forming a splinter faction from al-Shabab, the al Qaeda-affiliated militant group that had been hunting him for months, according to Hammami.

When Shabab fighters closed in on Hammamii in the Bay and Bakool area of southern Somalia, the men apparently fell victim to the internecine conflict typical both of radical political groups and of Somalia, which has had no functional central government since 1991. Various clans and neighboring nations still dominate the major cities, while al-Shabaab, which translates as The Youth, is confined to the scrubby, sandy countryside where the firefight erupted early Thursday, outside the village of Dinsoor, according to the BBC.

Hammami, 29, had been a figure of fascination for his American roots and an appetite for attention that added to the friction with al-Shabab, which last year tweeted about his “narcissistic pursuit of fame.” True to form, Hammami had countered earlier reports of his death (including one that claimed he was done in by a U.S. drone) by releasing videos and hip-hop tracks. “Just been shot in neck by shabab assassin. not critical yet,” he tweeted in April. The State Department offered $5 million for information leading to his capture.

For a time, al-Shabab thrived in the chaos of Somalia. But the group was confronted by troops from neighboring Ethiopia, Kenya and the African Union, and left the capital Mogadishu in 2011. Infighting has taken a toll; so has a theological rigidity that clashes with Somalia’s more diverse traditions. On Thursday, 160 Somali religious scholars issued a fatwa denouncing al-Shabab as having “no place in Islam.” But the group continues to threaten efforts to build a core government in Somalia, taking responsibility for a Sept. 7 car bomb that killed 15 people at a Mogadishu restaurant popular with journalists and politicians.

Karl Vick has been TIME's Jerusalem bureau chief since 2010, covering Israel,the Palestine territories and nearby sovereignties. He worked 16 years at the Washington Post in Nairobi, Istanbul, Baghdad, Los Angeles and Rockville, MD.

Good riddance. And lets note -- he wasn't killed by one of our drones -- recruitment technology that helps groups like al-Shabab -- but by the kind of internecine conflict that often erupts when insurgents are losing.

Who are they losing to?

An African army that came in and fought the fanatics with people who don't have an American agenda, are not chain-jerked by Israel and who look like the people they are helping. Yes, sorry, farm boys from Wisconsin kinda stick out in places like this. And Africa is shaping up, despite the p*ssing and moaning of the neocolonialists. The old colonial ties are being replaced by Chinese investment, and a middle class is growing up in Africa. The Africans no longer need to beg the Europeans and Americans to by their produce.

Educated people are returning to Somalia. They are starting to build what the neocolonialists do not want -- a really independent and self-sufficient African nation.

To you bleeding heart liberals out there Muslims not only kill anyone who is not a muslim they kill there own for almost any reason. Non-violent my ass. one less muslim no loss there are far to many as there is. Let them kill each other.

@Openminded1 What you fail to realize is that you are no different than radical Muslims when you talk like this. You sound like you want all Muslims to just disappear. Luckily, we don't have to listen to moronic commentary from idiots like you. Most Muslims are good, peace-loving people. Turn off Fox News and start doing your own research.

@Openminded1 I don't see what any of this has to do with being a liberal. I'm plenty liberal and I was plenty please to read a terrorist had been killed today and thought it was funny he was a rapping terrorist and great that he was killed by his own brothers. I guess I just don't see how any of it has anything to do with thinking that Obama is doing more for our country than Bush, how part of what makes America great is our willingness to help less fortunate people or the fact that gay men and women ought to have the same legal rights as straight men and women.

@RustyShackford5@Openminded1 I do not need Fox cartoon man I have many years of experience first hand dealing with your so called peace loving people. The point moron you do not know who is peace loving, just because they smile and say hello. You research dummy i will help you get started, The neighbors in Boston thought the two brothers were peace loving too, The Army thought The Muslim Major at fort Hood was peaceful and a good a good soldier too. The people who lived next door to some of the 9/11 muslim guys flying the planes into the twin towers were peaceful guys too. And moron i can go on and on, You are want to live in fantasy land there is always Disney. You are a very naive, and type that lets is alligator mouth over run his canary ass.

@terripeate@Openminded1 You need to go back and read dummy, i think you are on drugs and see things that are not there. and that image you have of yourself very weird and shows signs of mental issues. That or you have delusions of grandeur.

@SeanO'Keefe@Openminded1 Obama is aracist muslim who said anything about him or Bush the moron he was. I do not vote along any party lines, as you liberals do and i have no problem with you be gay to each there own.

@TWGorilla@Openminded1 I am going to assume your post is sarcastic, so i will address you as what you appear to be a bleeding heart liberal who is very naive not to mention a dummy with a stupid avatar name. read the other post , no one cares. muslim.s are not nice people they are hiding behind religion. do your home work gorilla, remember 9/11, remember the Army Major, remember Boston and I can go on and on. They are religious fanatics who kill do to hatred of non-muslims. moron

@RustyShackford5@Openminded1 ps you mention radical muslims, how can you tell which are radical and the which are the alleged peace loving ones as you put it. do they have name tags on saying I am a good Muslim or I am one of the radicals. grow up moron I can tell you never served in the military. maybe the boy scouts.

@RustyShackford5@Openminded1@TWGorilla This from a moron with that avatar.16 try 63 30 year police veteran and vietnam vet ass wipe you are new to posting here so i will let you off easy moron. Do some research i have about 3000 post on here it they will tell my story. I am a man that says it like it is sonny I do not play the PC crap like politicians and bleeding heart liberals like you. I know what our country is founded on and its theory of equality. You are as stupid as your cartoon avatar and way out of your league. If you like Muslims go right ahead but make sure you watch your dumb ass around them and do not say anything about there fanatical religion, because they do not argue with morons like you they just might kill your silly liberal ass and then laugh.

@Openminded1@TWGorilla Openminded, I hope you realize you sound like a 16 year old kid. You probably are. You seem to forget that our country is founded on the principle of equality and freedom for all. Crawl back into that hillbilly shack of yours so you don't have to make a bad impression of Americans for everyone else.

@JohnKing3@Openminded1@TWGorilla Yeah.. hmmmm! You missed the mark on this one. McVay's attack was not a religious-hatred thing. True: plenty of cruelty in the history of Christianity... but, two wrongs do not make a right. Muslims of this sort (extremists) ignore history - Judaism & Christianity after all have been around longer. So they're repeating history at a bad time for us. Your point, frankly, is irrelevant to this article's story.

@SamWhite@Openminded1@JohnKing3@TWGorilla Sammy it appears you can read and comprehend what i right. and why would i have to look up words when you and I understand what was being said. I doubt you can type 120 words a minute and use punctuation correctly. It seems the mistakes I make are on little words not the bigger ones that most misspell. Could be typing errors you think. just let me say this as an old 63 year old man retired i am surprised I even know how to you a computer let alone type as fast as I do. But I will be thinking about you wannabe teachers as I sit on my Balcony 32 floors up sipping on a glass of fine wine over looking miami beach and wonder how a guy like me did so well to afford a 3700 sq foot condo over looking the beach.

@terripeate@JohnKing3@Openminded1@TWGorilla This is not a spelling bee ass wipe i type 120 words a minute so i can answer snob wannabe english and grammar teachers like you. This is from a real guy who says it it like it is and does not us PC, because anyone who uses PC we know is full of crap like politicians. Oh and did I spell ass wipe wright for you dummy.

@JohnKing3@Openminded1@TWGorilla Your spelling turns what would otherwise simply be a pathological rant into something comic. You have about as much business writing as I do coaching a pro football team.

@JohnKing3@Openminded1@TWGorilla Mcvie did what he did because he hated the united states for is own stupid reason not because of any religion dummy. The majority of so called christians do not kill innocent people because you slam there religion, they may call you names but not kill you. Muslims you can not trust to say anything against them. And most liberals are very naive and buy into almost any rhetoric that feels good. You are a moron move into reality disney is for kids.

@Openminded1@TWGorilla There are a whole bunch of Christian fundamentalists or white supremenest who are just as bad. Timothy McVie for instance. Bottom line is that extreme muslims and extreme Christians are bad people but the majority of the Muslims and the Christians are good people. Openminded however appears to want to relate everything to liberals if they don't agree with him. You are moron